The Minnesota Golden Gopher football team is facing a member of the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS), formerly Division I-AA, Saturday when the South Dakota Coyotes enter TCF Bank Stadium.

It will be the 56th meeting between the Gophers and a current member of the FCS. Of the previous 55 meetings, 10 have been against the Coyotes and 43 have been against a team from the Dakotas.

The Gophers have a record of 9-1 against the Coyotes, 6-0 against South Dakota State (last season's only FCS opponent), 19-0 against North Dakota and 7-1 against North Dakota State.

The Gophers and Coyotes have played each other 10 times in the past, but it has been 80 years since their last meeting. Every meeting has been played in Minneapolis and the Coyotes' lone win came in 1912.

This particular game pits two teams that ran the ball more than they passed in their respective openers. The Gophers' concerted effort to run the ball led to a dominating ball control game, in which it had the ball for over 45 minutes. The Coyotes ran the ball 26 times, compared to 19 pass attempts, despite trailing by double digits for just over two-thirds of its game against the Central Florida Knights.